


Washable Hearts

by neko_fish



Category: Star Trek: Alternate Original Series (Movies)
Genre: Academy Era, Friends With Benefits, Fun Facts, M/M, Washable Markers, sap
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-07-09
Updated: 2013-07-09
Packaged: 2017-12-18 05:27:06
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,593
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/876129
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/neko_fish/pseuds/neko_fish
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The only thing Leonard knows for sure when Jim begins writing fun facts on his person is that he'll never see his markers again. Academy fic.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Washable Hearts

**Author's Note:**

  * Translation into Русский available: [Washable Hearts](https://archiveofourown.org/works/10326410) by [NewBeginnings](https://archiveofourown.org/users/NewBeginnings/pseuds/NewBeginnings)



> Many thanks to the lovely siluria for beta'ing! This was originally inspired by QI because I needed to do _something_ with all the random fun facts I learnt from that show.

“Dammit, Jim, hold still. I need to make sure I get everything.”  
  
“But Bones, it  _tickles_!”  
  
Furrowing his eyebrows in concentration, Leonard continues marking out the muscles and bones on Jim’s upper torso. He has a quiz coming up and Jim so kindly volunteered to help him study—by standing there and letting Leonard label all of his body parts with his daughter’s washable markers that he’d accidentally packed and brought with him from Georgia.  
  
What else are roommates and best friends for?  
  
“Let’s see, this is the deltoid, the trapezius, scapula, clavicle, the pectoralis major….”  
  
Standing in his boxers, Jim watches him write the words down. He already has labels written all over his face. He has ‘temporal’ written on his forehead, ‘zygomatic’ and ‘maxilla’ written on his cheeks, and all the other bones on his head labelled. In brown ink, he has all the muscles scribbled in, weaving all around. He also has a black unibrow because Leonard ‘ _misspelt’_  ‘procerus’ and had to scribble it out, but that bit was  _mostly_  unintentional.  
  
Neither of them have an excuse for the big black handlebar moustache adorning Jim’s face.  
  
“Are there independent muscles for the nipples too?” Jim asks with an eyebrow-waggle when Leonard starts writing on his chest.  
  
Leonard rolls his eyes and draws circles around Jim’s nipples and a big smile on his stomach. “Happy?”  
  
Looking down, Jim laughs with childish delight. “No, but apparently my chest is.”  
  
“Good,” he says, not listening at all. “Let’s see, this is the serratus anterior and the external oblique—are you sucking in your gut, Jim?”  
  
Jim shakes his head and averts his gaze. “Nope. No idea what you’re talking about. There’s nothing to suck in. These chiselled abs are totally real and all mine, Bones. They’re impressive and awe-inspiring, I know.”  
  
“Right. Turn around, let me finish with the back muscles then I’ll start on the legs.” He can hear Jim exhaling in relief when he turns the other way and tries not to smile.  
  
“You’ve got to be the only person in all of San Francisco to own washable markers. Oh, they’re even the extra-long-lasting ones! Did you know that way back when, they used to only last a couple days before drying out? Nothing but a big marketing scam to get parents to buy more if you ask me. But then again, it  _was_  the 21st century we’re talking about. Where’d you even get these?”  
  
Leonard rolls his eyes. “They’re my daughter’s. It took forever to find a place that still sold markers and actual colouring books.”  
  
Jim glances back at him. “Yeah, but that’s probably because they invented the colouring PADD for kids.”  
  
“Technology’s overrated and hardly as much fun. It might not be as messy, but you can’t draw all over a person with a colouring PADD,” he grumbles.  
  
“That’s true. I feel like the most anatomically correct person on the planet right now,” Jim tells him, studying his arms and hands. “This is fascinating.”  
  
Glancing up from his work, Leonard mutters, “Don’t say that, it makes you sound prudish. And just wait until I start drawing in the veins and arteries.”  
  
“I can’t believe you just used the word ‘prudish’,” Jim snorts. “Who even says that anymore? And why are you even bothering with human anatomy? You already know all this, and we both know that you’re gonna ace that class. And you  _do_  realize that we have tricorders nowadays, right?”  
  
“A little review never hurt anyone,” he replies. “And you’ll thank me when all technology stops working someday. Doctors that solely rely on tricorders should have their licenses taken away.”  
  
“And  _this_ , Bones, is why you’re listed as my primary physician. When that day comes, you’ll be able to tell people that there’s a deep laceration on my,” he lifts his arm and reads the writing, “flexor digitorum profundus, brackets ‘FDP’, and it needs immediate medical attention or I’ll bleed out and die. Hey, will you be done in forty-five minutes? I’ve got class.”  
  
“I’ll try, but I can’t promise anything,” he replies, switching to his brown marker. “If I’m not, you better haul ass back here after class so I can finish this—and don’t you dare get wet. This stuff washes off like cheap cosmetics. I’ll need you again tomorrow to review Vulcan anatomy.”  
  
Forty-three and a half minutes later, Jim runs out of their room and off to class, correctly anatomically labelled—moustache and unibrow and all.  
  
No one so much as raises an eyebrow at his appearance.  
  
\--  
  
A week later, standing in front of the mirror with a befuddled look on his face, Leonard narrows his eyes in thought. He’s not sure if he’s being pranked or if it’s serious. But to be fair, it’s never easy to tell with Jim. The kid’s as unpredictable as quantum physics where everything is and isn’t at the same time until measured and whatnot.  
  
After the first few weeks of being Jim’s roommate, Leonard quickly learnt not to assume anything because within those few weeks, not only did Jim become his best friend, he also became his best friend with benefits—which, of course, started out as a big drunken mistake that sounded something like:  
  
 _“Bones! I’m_ _gonna go drink my face off at the new bar that just opened_ _!_ _You_ _seriously need to join me!”_  
  
 _“Now why would I do something like that? I can get intoxicated and risk alcohol poisoning perfectly fine on my own_ _, right here_ _— **without**  an audience.”_  
  
 _“But I might do something incredibly stupid like go snorkelling in the fountain—again! Don’t you want to see that? C’mon! It’ll be lots of fun!”_  
  
 _“Jim, you do_ _something stupid every single day. And please don’t go near **any**  body of water while you’re intoxicated. You could probably drown yourself in an empty glass. And if I’m there with you, you’_ _ll somehow pull me under as well. Thanks, but no thanks. You’re on your own_ _tonight.”_  
  
 _“So is that a yes?”_  
  
 _“Of course it is. Just let me grab my jacket.”_  
  
All that somehow led to him standing in front of a mirror, over a year later, looking rather stupefied.  
  
There’s a big red heart drawn and coloured in over where his heart is, and in big bold letters, there’s a fun fact written across his stomach.  
  
 _‘_ _Fun fact: Vulcan has no moon, their sky is red, and they have electrical_ _fire sand storms!’_  
  
He knew he shouldn’t have left those markers unattended because the only thing he’s absolutely certain of now is that he’ll never get them back again.  
  
As much as he wants to ask Jim about the random fun fact about Vulcan, he doesn’t have the time to solve riddles or to crack Kirk-codes. Scrubbing the words off his stomach and the heart off his chest in the shower, he runs out of their dorm with a tumbler full of coffee and a blueberry bagel in his mouth.  
  
By the time he’s done with class, the incident’s been completely erased from his mind.  
  
\--  
  
Jim spends the next few days out chasing first years and a pair of Andorian twins. Not that Leonard’s upset by it because he understands that what he has with Jim isn’t supposed to be serious—because Jim Kirk doesn’t  _do_  ‘serious’.  
  
He’s Jim’s best friend and occasional companion in bed, nothing more. He knows this to be the case because not once has Jim ever failed to crawl back into his own bed once they were done; and while it may not be what Leonard was hoping for, he’ll happily accept whatever Jim gives him. So when Jim finally deigns to spend the night with Leonard, he only grumbles as much as is expected from him and almost immediately gives in afterwards.  
  
In the morning, he finds a bold red heart on his chest and another fun fact written down his arm.  
  
 _‘_ _Fun fact: Everyone expected the Spanish Inquisition back in the 15 th century! The accused were given 30 day_ _s notice.’_  
  
He pokes his head out the bathroom and looks back at Jim who’s snoring softly in his own bed. Not wanting to wake him up, he rolls his eyes and steps into the shower and tries not to think about it too much when he scrubs the red ink off his chest.  
  
\--  
  
He knows Jim’s a walking encyclopedia and shouldn’t be surprised in the least that his brain’s full of interesting but useless facts, but sometimes he wishes Jim would just  _tell_ him these fun facts instead of scribbling it on his person. Craning his neck to read the writing on his back, he sighs when he sees the ugliest squirrel he’s ever laid eyes on with a speech bubble that reads:  
  
 _‘_ _Fun fact: Squirrels identify each other by kissing. XXX (Those are kisses—not what I know you know I’m thinking of.)’_  
  
Rolling his eyes yet unable to keep the smile off his face, he steps into the shower.  
  
\--  
  
“So do you write fun facts on everyone you spend the night with?” Leonard asks Jim over lunch one day. It’s a topic they rarely talk about, but it’s happened so many times now that he just  _has_  to know.  
  
Jim arches a brow and laughs. “Of course not, don’t be ridiculous, Bones! That’d just be weird, wouldn’t it? I like to think that I‘m a little more socially adept than you give me credit for.”  
  
Leonard doesn’t know what to make of Jim’s statement and shrugs it off with an “oh.”  
  
From that day on, he does his best to stay awake after their activities. Instead, he feigns sleep and waits to see what Jim does. He hears shuffling and then a quiet, “Bones?”  
  
He keeps his eyes shut and exhales loudly for effect.  
  
“Oh sure, phantom radio waves from your comm can wake you, but not me calling your name.” Jim chuckles, and shuffles around some more.  
  
Tempted as he is to open his eyes because he can feel himself falling asleep, he resists. He hears the marker cap popping off and nearly flinches when he feels the tip on his face.  
  
The bastard.  
  
After scribbling whatever random fun fact he thought of while humming a tuneless song to himself, Jim uncaps another marker and starts writing on his chest. Leonard stills as much as he can to decipher the message. All Jim writes is  _‘Bones. Bones. Bones.’_  before colouring over it and turning it into a big red heart. Then he puts the cap back on and places a kiss on Leonard’s lips. “G’night, Bones.”  
  
Leonard tries not to shiver at the sudden and very acute loss of warmth by his side. Grunting and groping blindly for his duvet, he pulls it over his head and goes to sleep, idly running a finger over the heart Jim drew on him.  
  
When he gets up the next morning, he stands in front of the mirror and glares at the  _‘_ _Fun fact: Albert Einstein never wore socks._ ’ scribbled all over the face and vows to get revenge on Jim one way or another.  
  
Once he’s in the shower, however, he hesitates to wash the heart off.  
  
\--  
  
A few days later, Jim writes nothing but  _’Doctor Leonard McCoy_ ’ and covers it up with his cartoon heart.  
  
Leonard doesn’t know what to make of this.  
  
\--  
  
They don’t spend another night together until after Leonard returns from his trip to Georgia. That night, Jim writes  _’I missed you.’_ over his heart and colours his words over with red ink like he always does.  
  
Tempted as he is to sit up and confront Jim about it, he doesn’t. Within a minute, Jim’s already back over in his own bed and curled up under the blanket.  
  
Leonard doesn’t get a wink of sleep that night.  
  
In the morning, he ignores the poorly drawn and rather sad looking Andorian with a single antenna on his stomach with a speech bubble saying ‘ _Fun fact: Andorians have trouble balancing if they lose an antenna._ ’ Instead, he stares at the big red heart on his chest and wonders why Jim couldn’t just have told him his message with  _words_.  
  
When Jim asks him what the matter was later that day, he shakes his head and says, “Andorians adjust within 24 hours, you know? It’s not like losing an antenna will permanently cripple them. Not to mention the antenna will grow back.”  
  
He doesn’t know why those words came flying out of his mouth when what he’d meant to say was “ _I missed you too, kid_.”  
  
\--  
  
A week later, his favourite coffee mug goes missing and he has a sneaking suspicion that Jim broke it in a drunken stupor last night. He doesn’t get a chance to complain about it though, because he has classes all day followed by an extra long shift at Starfleet Medical. And to add insult to injury, at the end of his shift, he gets comm’ed by Jim to bail him out of jail—again.  
  
Getting more than five hours worth of sleep is nothing but a fleeting memory now, something he once knew but took for granted, and is now lost to him forever, he thinks to himself mournfully as he drags his weary legs over to the station. It’s a challenge, keeping his eyes open the entire way there, but he’s made the journey so many times, he’s pretty sure he could get there blindfolded.  
  
As if to further prove his point, once he gets there, the officer on shift tilts his hat and greets him casually, “Hey, Doctor McCoy. Looks like you’ve had a long night. C’mon, I’ll bring you ‘round the back.”  
  
“What’d he do this time?” he asks, only half wanting to hear the answer.  
  
“Nothing too terrible, he got caught up in a scuffle—don’t think it was his fault this time though. He’s completely sober from what I can tell,” the officer tells him. “And here we are.”  
  
Standing in front of the holding cell, Leonard arches a brow and crosses his arms in as menacing a way as he can. Jim just shoots him a rueful grin. He rolls his eyes and sighs, “At least you’re mostly clothed this time, I guess.”  
  
“Hey, I’m a big boy now, Bones. I’ll have you know that I get arrested with my pants on like, at least  _half_  the time now,” Jim retorts. Then after a pause, he adds, “Thanks for coming to get me.”  
  
Of all things he still hasn’t built any immunity to, at the top of this list is Jim Kirk. Leonard shakes his head and makes his way towards the exit. “Don’t worry about it. Let’s just get your sorry ass home already.”  
  
When they get back to his room, Jim distracts him with sex—which turns out to be a very effective strategy on Jim’s part.  
  
That night, he has to force himself to stay awake just to find out what message Jim has for him. Jim hums lightly to himself as he scribbles on Leonard’s side before moving onto his heart.  
  
 _‘I broke your mug. Sorry.’_  
  
Leonard almost opens his eyes in surprise.  
  
The next morning, he reads,  _‘_ _Fun fact: The human brain is only capable of maintaining_ _approximately 150 stable relationships.’_  
  
He wants to snort and ask Jim if that was true then what happened to  _them_? Well, he’s pretty sure he knows exactly what happened to him: Jim somehow snuck in and replaced approximately 130 of those stable relationships in his life—give or take 20.  
  
When he gets back to their room later that day, he finds a new mug sitting inconspicuously on the counter. It’s not the same as his old mug which had said ‘Fuck half-empty and half-full. I just want a cup of  _goddamn_  coffee,’ but it carries the same sentiment. On the bottom of the new mug, there’s a nice picture of a middle finger and the words ‘Fuck off. I’m drinking,’ written on it.  
  
Leonard can feel Jim’s eyes on him from the other room as he examines the cup. And because he doesn’t really have the words to say _‘I forgive you’_ and _‘thanks for replacing my cup’_ , simple as they are, he says, instead, “Jim, do you know whose cup this is?”  
  
“No idea, Bones,” Jim calls back.  
  
“Well, it’s mine now. It’ll be a nice replacement for my old mug. I’ve been meaning to get myself a new one anyway,” he says.  
  
In the reflection of the microwave, he catches a glimpse of Jim smiling at him and has to try his damnedest not to smile back.  
  
\--  
  
Their routine continues where Jim hums to himself and writes down all the words he can’t say out loud over Leonard’s heart and Leonard responds the best he can in his own clumsy way.  
  
It isn’t until one night when Jim pauses in his humming and the marker lingers over his heart for a moment. Then, with slow and careful movements, Jim starts writing.  
  
 _‘Mine?’_  
  
Leonard’s eyes snap open and he sits up. His sudden movements startle Jim to the point where he falls off the bed with flailing arms and lands on the floor with an ‘oof!’ Ignoring his roommate who’s stunned beyond words, he cranes his neck to look down—to see if Jim had really written what he thought he’d written. Unable to see the writing, without thinking, he scurries into the bathroom, leaving Jim on the floor, gaping. He stares at the word written inside the cartoon heart for a long time.  
  
Because Jim is Jim, that one word might as well say  _‘I love you. Do you love me too?’_  
  
Marching back into the bedroom where Jim’s still sitting on the floor, stupefied and slightly horrified, Leonard rips the marker out of Jim’s hand and pushes him onto his back. Because he’s clumsy with his words and can’t ever hope to utter the right ones in situations like this (not even ones as simple as _‘Yes, of course’_ ), he uncaps the marker and draws an anatomically correct heart and writes ‘ _Only if this is mine’_  in it. Then grabbing the blue marker, he writes  _‘Fun fact: You’re an idiot’_  across Jim’s stomach.  
  
Not a single word is exchanged between them even after Leonard finishes writing and retreats to sit on his bed.  
  
Eyes wide, Jim remains where he is and stares at him in shock. He looks down at his torso and realizes that he can’t read the words so he pushes himself up and, like Leonard did earlier, disappears off to the bathroom for a long while.  
  
Leonard can hear his heart pounding in his ears and swallows hard as he waits for Jim’s reaction.  
  
When Jim finally returns, the two of them stare at each other in silence.  
  
Walking over to his nightstand, Jim pulls out a brown marker and writes  _‘Yours’_  over his own heart.  
  
Leonard’s eyes widen. He can feel his heart pounding wildly beneath his ribs as he mirrors Jim’s action.  
  
 _‘Yours.’_  
  
Jim’s lips curl into a smile; his blue eyes lighting up, visible even in the darkness of their room. “Here’s a fun fact for you, Bones, cartoon hearts are romantic, but anatomically correct ones? Not so much.”  
  
“Oh, shut your hole,” he scowls, “and get your sorry ass over here.”  
  
“I thought you’d never ask.”  
  
They spend the rest of night writing secrets onto each other with washable markers—secrets they’ve never told anyone else and could never find the words to say out loud.  
  
\--  
  
Much to Leonard’s delight, Jim’s still there in the morning, curled up against him in a bed that’s a little too small for two grown men. They’re both covered in writing and drawn hearts, and he can’t help smiling when he reads the words scrawled down his torso and Jim’s. They’re wearing all of each other’s secrets on their skin, he thinks with a snort.  
  
As though on cue, Jim’s eyes flutter open and a lazy smile graces his lips. “Hey, you.”  
  
“Hey, you, yourself,” he murmurs back.  
  
“You know, I thought there’d be a lot more sex involved after such a major confession,” Jim admits, “and less writing. A lot less writing.”  
  
Leonard glances over at the markers strewn over the bed and across the floor, and frowns. “Well, you don’t have to worry about that anymore. You forgot to cap the markers, dumbass. I bet they’re all dried up now.”  
  
“Guess we’ll just have to say these things out loud from now on,” Jim drawls, trailing kisses up his back.  
  
He rolls his eyes. “Oh, how will we ever manage?”  
  
“Do you think Joanna will be upset when she finds out that we used up her markers?” Jim asks. “We’ll have to send her a thank you card or something.”  
  
Leonard arches a brow. “We? No.  _You’ll_  have to send her a letter of apology for indirectly stealing them from her—‘or something’.” Then he looks down at his stomach and his furrows his brow. “...does that say _‘I would’ve traded my right testicle for you’_?”  
  
Jim takes a look and laughs. “Yeah, but let’s just keep that our little secret, okay?”  
  
He shakes his head and is about to say something when he reads on the side of his thigh,  
  
 _‘Fun fact: Yours always.’_  
  
Reading the exact same message written over Jim’s shoulder, Leonard forgets whatever biting remark he was about to spit out, and with a smile, opts for pulling Jim into a kiss instead.


End file.
